Chapter 11
They hadn't really known each other in high school, Kayla thought as she sat down. Maybe that was why she hadn't seen Jordan as her fated mate back then. Maybe—
Maybe you were an owlet, her owl said with obvious exasperation. You didn't need a fated mate then.
Kayla mumbled, "Oh," out loud as she snuggled into the armchair.
The decor had probably been dictated by Jordan's parents' tastes in furniture, possibly thirty years ago, but the couches and chairs had thick soft cushions and high, padded arms just right for draping an arm over to read, and were really comfortable.
There was also almost enough room for Barney in what was left of the chair cushion after what Kayla herself used up: she knew this because the Border Collie bounced up into the chair and arranged himself over the remaining cushion, her hip, and her tucked-up feet.
Kayla wasn't sure he was comfortable, but he was warm, and she wasn't about to shoo him away.
"I think you already know everything interesting about me," Jordan said as he took his own seat. "Played baseball, blew my knee out, came back to Virtue. That about sums it up."
"I disagree. For example, you hadn't mentioned you can cook."
"Anybody can roast a chicken," Jordan protested. "Literally just put it in the oven and leave it alone for as long as the packaging tells you to cook it. It's not that hard."
"And yet innumerable people produce dry, chalky chicken," Kayla said. "Not that I speak from experience or anything."
"Honestly, just cook it as long as the packaging says and it'll be fine. Same thing with turkey. It's not that hard, although I do have my grandmother's roasting pan for turkey, and it self-bastes, which makes it even easier."
"Do I even want to know what 'self-basting' is?" Kayla asked cautiously. "And also, that's really cool that you've got her roasting pan. You must actually cook."
Jordan grinned. "I can't explain self-basting in polite company.
" As Kayla's eyebrows rose, his grin turned to his warm, rich laugh, and he waved off his comment.
"No, basting, it's, you know, squirting the juice over the top of the bird as it cooks out?
This old roasting pan has a tented top—" He flattened his hands, fingertips to fingertips, then bent his first knuckles in so they made a small dip in the flat line his hands made.
"—so the condensation inside the roasting pan rises, gathers on the top, and drips down onto the bird so it bastes itself. "
"Yeah, I think maybe every word of that sounded dirty somehow. Dirty and yet delicious. I may invite myself over for Thanksgiving."
"You'd be more than welcome," Jordan said, his smile softening. "Anyway, my parents told me I needed to know how to cook before I went to college because there was no easier way to make friends than home made food, and they weren't wrong. I'm a pretty good basic cook."
"I, on the other hand, don't know what self-basting is," Kayla said.
"They feed us on set and I eat a lot of pre-packaged salad when I'm not working.
Not because I have a great love for salad, but because it doesn't require much thought.
I'm surprised—" She broke off, and as Jordan's expression turned curious, she groaned silently at herself.
"I was going to say, I'm surprised you don't have a girlfriend, although I realize I don't actually know if that's true. "
"Ah." Jordan's mouth twisted and he glanced down, shaking his head. "No, no serious relationships for a while. The last one ended with my knee injury, which was how I found out she was really in it because she thought I might someday make the majors and bring in a lot of cash."
"Well, she was an idiot, but also…" Kayla squinted at him. "Don't take this wrong, but I thought you said most players didn't make the big time after they hit thirty?"
"It turns out she was an idiot in many ways," Jordan agreed dryly. "And I guess I was too, because I stuck with the relationship even when it was pretty clear she was waiting for me to hit the big time. What about you?"
"I'm not waiting to hit the big time," Kayla promised, and Jordan gave a startled laugh.
"I meant relationships, but no? You're not aiming for the A-list?"
She wrinkled her nose. "I knew what you meant.
And no, not that either, I just had a breakup and decided I was done with men forever or until fate struck, but also, no, I don't think I am.
I was when I was seventeen," she said with a fond, rueful smile at her teenage self.
"But now? I've been working steadily for almost twenty years, leading films for six or seven of those.
I'm making decent money, and I can walk down most streets without getting mobbed.
I've even come back to my hometown without being recognized, which is what I wanted, so yeah, I'm not sure I'd trade up, honestly. "
"There is a lot to unpack in that," Jordan said, eyes rounding. "I take it the breakup wasn't with…Cyril? And how do you know if it's fate? And why don't you want to be recognized as from Virtue? It's not that bad a town!"
"It's a pretty good little town," Kayla agreed with a brief smile. "Better now than when we were growing up, maybe. But…boy." She fell silent a moment, studying Jordan's long jaw and dark, curious eyes. "No, Cyril and I broke up years ago. This was…his name is Boone, and—"
Jordan snickered. "Daniel?"
Kayla opened her mouth and, unexpectedly, let out a giggle.
"No, sorry, Boone is his first name. He's a good guy, actually, it's just he wanted things I didn't. Or—" She shook her head.
"Not even things I didn't want. I just don't have time right now.
Marriage, kids, that kind of thing, you know?
We could have worked it out, except he got a bee in his bonnet about wanting those right now, and I'm like…
I have a movie to film, man. I've got another one lined up in four months.
If I'm going to have a baby, I either need a script that works with that or some time off! "
"It's a lot harder for women, isn't it?" Jordan asked sympathetically. "In any career, probably, but acting, when your look is a big part of the package…men don't have to think about their bodies changing dramatically during filming."
"Exactly! Boone was having a hard time with that.
And now…" Now she had Jordan, though she still had to explain that.
And part of her didn't exactly want to, not yet.
Not about fate, at least. Right now they were just reconnecting like two totally normal people, and it was going really well.
Adding in a 'by the way, we're meant to be together forever' just seemed like a lot of unnecessary pressure.
On the other hand, she didn't have to tell him everything all at once, and he was clearly bewildered by Kayla's desire to keep Virtue off the map.
Explaining that to him without dropping the whole 'fated mates' thing in his lap was probably enough for one evening.
"Anyway, the thing about not wanting people to know where I'm from…
there's actually a really good reason for that, J, but you're going to think I'm completely crazy if I just tell you in words. "
He leaned forward, gaze solemn. "I'm willing to hear it through interpretive dance."
Kayla burst out laughing, surprising Barney, who leaped down from the chair and gave her an injured look.
Still laughing, she reached down to pet him, then grinned at Jordan.
"I could probably do that, but it might make everything even weirder.
Okay, look, can Barney go out of the room for a few minutes?
Behind a door he can't get through," she specified.
"Er, yeah? Sure?" Jordan got up to lead the dog down the hall, where he closed him in the bathroom, then returned to lean in the living room door, eyebrows quirked curiously. "Why did I do that?"
"Because I don't know how he'll react," Kayla admitted. She stood up, shaking Jordan's big loose clothes down around her like she was settling her feathers. "I'm going to tell you why Virtue needs to stay off the radar, and you're not going to believe me, so then I'm going to show you, okay?"
"This is the strangest and most interesting conversation I've ever had. Okay, I'm all ears." Jordan cupped a hand behind one ear demonstratively, then folded it down across his chest again, watching Kayla with bewildered interest.
"You know it's a pretty old town, right? It was chartered in the 1680s or something?" At Jordan's nod, Kayla went on. "Right, so it was a really unusual group of people who lobbied for the charter. A group of shifters, which…have you ever heard of shifters?"
Jordan, eyebrows still up, unfolded his arm again to make a gear box shifting movement like he was driving a manual transmission car.
Kayla smiled and shook her head. "Not that kind of shifting.
More like werewolves. People who have a human form and an animal form and can shift back and forth between them.
Except they can do it at will, not tied to the moon the way werewolves are. "
"You're telling me Virtue is full of werewolves? That would be a good reason to keep it off the map!"
"Not werewolves. But shifters. Like this." Taking a deep breath, Kayla shifted into her owl form, and waited.